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A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age |  | Authors: Richard Layard, Judy Dunn
Publisher: Penguin
Category: Book
List Price: £9.99
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Seller: UKPaperbackshop
Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 20042
Media: Paperback
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.6
ISBN: 0141039434
EAN: 9780141039435
ASIN: 0141039434
Publication Date: February 5, 2009
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Explores the main stresses and influences to which every child is exposed - family, friends, youth culture, values, and schooling. This book also makes recommendations as to how we can improve the upbringing of our children. It tackles issues which affect every child, whatever their background.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
 Outstanding study of what makes childhood a good experience March 13, 2009
T. Ogden (Oxfordshire, UK)
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
This is the result of an enquiry in Britain lasting 18 months and set up by The Children's Society, into the factors that make for a good childhood. Its strengths are that at every stage it backs its findings by citing evidence from studies in sociology, psychology, and education, which in many cases it critically evaluates, but at the same time illuminates with stories of individual children, and quotes from them. It concludes the importance of love, parental commitment (from both parents in harmonious relationship if at all possible), setting boundaries for the children, moral standards. as well as elements such as friends, exercise, and early education. It laments Britain's poor performance on childhood poverty and discusses its consequences. An outstanding piece of work.
A bold and challenging analysis of childhood in a consumer culture April 17, 2009
Jeremy Williams (Luton)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
In 2007, a UNICEF study ranked 21 developed countries and found that the UK came last for child welfare, with the US second worst. The Good Childhood Inquiry set out to find out why, and this book represents their conclusions.
On one level, it's a good time to be a child. Children in the UK enjoy good health and can look forward to long lives. They have foreign holidays, and a wealth of consumer goods. Despite the good life promised to them however, this generation of children is more stressed, more violent, and less happy than the children of the seventies or eighties. Alcohol use and teenage pregnancy are among the worst in Europe.
The report deals with some important and unpopular topics here, such as family break-up, and absent fathers, divorce, or parents who have put their careers first, as well as role of the media, and the erosion of trust.
There are lessons here for the government, town planners, teachers, and for parents. Overall however, the finger points at our whole individualistic consumer culture. And that's not so easily fixed.
The report has to return to that difficult word `values' - children need to empathise and understand the need to share, and to put others first. They need friends, teachers who believe in them, and parents who love them and love each other. In the end, love is a key word. "One major theme of this report is the need a more caring ethic and for less aggression - for, to put it bluntly, a society more based on the law of love" say the authors.
A Good Childhood is a thoroughly researched and thought provoking read, and I have no hesitation in recommending it.
A Good Childhood - fantastic report into UK society June 2, 2010
C. Kidd (Tonbridge, Kent, UK)
Last June I attended The Good Childhood Conference on behalf of our Local Children's Strategic Partnership Board. The Good Childhood Inquiry aimed to produce an evidence-based report (A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age by Richard Layard and Judy Dunn) that can help to improve the lives of children and young people in the UK today.
Its three big considerations were:
* What are conditions for a good childhood?
* What obstacles exist to those conditions today?
* What changes could be made which on the basis of the evidence would be likely to improve things?
Evidence, in a variety of sources came from over 18,000 children and young people, including over 50 focus groups to hear from children and young people who rarely participate in surveys. According to the children and young people, what makes a good childhood?
* Friends
* Relationships in general
* Love and support
* Having fun and enjoying life
* Bullying
THe report includes recommendations for parents, teachers, government, media, advertisers and wider society. If you haven't read the report, it's got a lot of detail, and is well worth getting hold of.
A very readable report January 10, 2010
M. J. Parsons (Wiltshire)
The result of an 18 month enquiry by the Children's society this book is well researched and very well presented. I picked it off the shelf with no prior knowledge and I found it interesting, easy to read and thought provoking.
The book initially asks if there is a problem in this country with how children are brought up and treated. It then systematically looks at all areas of childhood: Family, Friends, Lifestyle, Values, Schooling, Mental Health and Inequalities.
This book may be criticised as being too superficial but that could be more to do with the style in which it is written - not as an academic report but for people to read and as a result it's very readable. For the academics, the source material is found in over 30 pages of notes and references at the end (which I didn't need to read).
If the purpose of this book is to heighten public awareness of issues relating to children in a way that makes those issues easier to understand, then it has my vote!
Excellent...a must read for anyone involved in working with children. January 6, 2010
Naran Rathod (UK)
I have been working with children and young people for over thirty years and this is one of the most accessible explanations of the current crisis in the UK. If you've had the feeling that as a nation we have lost our way in recent years in raising and managing children, this will help give a steer in the right direction. Whether you are a parent or intending to become a parent and particularly if you work with children and young people, you have to read this. How good is this? I bought 10 copies (out of my own pocket!) and gave them as Christmas presents...
Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
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